Break a Leg
'' Break a Leg ''is the tenth book in the Middle School Experience series. It chronicles Arabella's move from Lakewood's drama club to the community center's gymnastic class. At first, she enjoys this change, but when an unfortunate event happens, she starts to doubt whether the change was worth it. After Arabella realizes that acting is not her passion, she decides to find a new hobby. She ends up joining her local gymnastics class, and to her surprise, she enjoys it and becomes a pretty skilled gymnast. However, her positive feelings about the class and hobby are dashed when a horrible accident occurs and she breaks her leg? Was joining the gymnastics class a mistake? And was her accident part of a bigger scheme? Summary In April, Arabella is realizing that being in both drama club and student council is stressing her out, so is forced to quit one of those activities. Since she has to finish out her term in student council, she reluctantly has to quit the drama club. At a drama club meeting, she meets up with Chloe, Daphne, Maryann, and Regina and tells them that she has to quit the club, which upsets Chloe. Regina also mentions that she is quitting the club soon so she can join the art club. However, once Ms. Thomas announces that she needs a few club members to be extras for her upcoming play, Arabella realizes that there's a way to stay in the drama club after all. After the club, Arabella's mother and older sister Taylor pick her up from school, and Arabella tells them about her plans. Unfortunately, it does not go over well, and Taylor upsets Arabella when she tells her that acting isn't really her calling. At home, however, Taylor apologizes and persuades Arabella to join a gymnastics class at the community center. Arabella reluctantly decides to give it a shot. When Arabella attends her first gymnastics meeting, she is intimidated by how well-skilled the girls are. She and her mom, Irene, are introduced to Juliana, the instructor. Juliana introduces Arabella to the girls in the class. Arabella notices that one of the girls in the class is exceptionally good. The girl (Susan) is aloof to Arabella, but Juliana makes Susan teach Arabella some skills. Once they are alone, Susan confesses that she is nervous about meeting new people, and decides to get to know Arabella when she realizes that she isn't as catty as she had assumed. Arabella is able to master the simple skills, and Susan is proud of her. For the next few weeks, Arabella attends the gymnastics class. She begins improving her skills more and starts to become friends with the girls. Arabella begins to bond with Susan and even invites her to eat out with her family a couple a times. Arabella asks Susan if they can hang out at Susan's house, but Susan is reluctant to make plans. Eventually, she gives in and gives Arabella her address. Arabella and Irene figure out that Susan lives in a different county from them, but Irene allows Arabella to go. Arabella gets a text message from Chloe asking her to hang out, but she rejects her offer because she has plans with Susan. Arabella starts to realize that she hasn't been really spending a lot of time with her school friends, but she believes that once she is settled with her schedule, everything will be fine. The next day, Irene drives Arabella to Susan's house, but not before stopping for Chick-Fil-A. When they arrive at Susan's house, they are greeted by her older brother, Jake. To Arabella's surprise, the house is smaller than she had expected. Susan acts a little awkward when she meets up with Arabella at first, and Arabella decides to give her a Chick-Fil-A sandwich. Susan rejects it, saying that she doesn't eat junk food, and decides to leave it on the counter for Jake. Susan decides to show Arabella her room, which is decorated in bland colors but filled with trophies and awards. Susan's parents arrive home and ask Susan to come downstairs. They scold Susan for leaving the Chick-Fil-A sandwich on the counter, and Arabella learns that Susan hadn't told her parents that she was coming over. The Duncans are rude to Arabella. Arabella also learns that Susan has to go to bed early every night for gymnastics training. Despite meeting Susan's parents, Arabella manages to enjoy herself at Susan's house. On a Saturday night, Arabella receives an e-mail from Juliana informing her about an upcoming gymnastics performance event. The following Thursday at a gymnastics meeting, Juliana has the girls perform drills to practice for the event. While they are practicing, Elise informs Arabella that Susan's parents take gymnastics seriously and have gone so far as to take on multiple jobs so they can finance Susan's possible career in gymnastics. After the drills, Juliana has the girls practice on the balance beam and makes Arabella perform her routine first. Arabella performs well, but near the end of her performance, her foot lands on a sticky substance and when she jerks her foot back, she loses her footing and falls off the beam. She ends up having to go to the hospital. After a few hours, the doctors inform Arabella and her parents that she has a fracture and will have to end up in a cast for five weeks. Because Arabella had stayed in the hospital for many hours, she is forced to stay home from school the next day. At lunchtime, Chloe calls her and Arabella tells her what happened. Chloe blames the gymnastic class for the incident, but convinces Arabella that she will be fine. Arabella mentions that she still plans on being part of the gymnastics class, and her conversation with Chloe ends awkwardly after that. The following Monday, Irene drives Arabella to school and has to walk her to the building. When people see Arabella walking with her mom, they gawk at her, and Arabella feels more embarrassed and miserable. When Arabella walks into the building, she accidentally falls, and the Popular Sensations mock her. Luckily, Robbie helps her up and decides to help her throughout the day. Before homeroom, Arabella meets up with a few of her friends. Chloe makes another snide insult about the gymnastics class, and gets annoyed when Robbie calls her out on it. Arabella thinks that Chloe is mad at her, but Robbie convinces her that Chloe just misses her. Arabella manages to get through the day with her crutches, but she still wishes that this didn't happen. At a gymnastics class, the rest of the girls sans Susan help Arabella into the building. When they finally meet up with Susan, they spot her standing under the balance beam, which Arabella finds strange. Arabella suddenly begins to smell something syrup-like, and Susan tells her that Juliana had been eating waffles earlier. Juliana has the girls practice on the balance beam again, and Elise decides to go first. In the middle of her routine, Elise slips and falls off the beam, but it caught by the other girls. Juliana is upset about the equipment being faulty, and Claudia thinks that the girls are being sabotaged. Lauren mentions that there were more girls that used to be on their gymnastics team, but they quit. Susan scoffs at the girls' theories about being cursed and leaves the room to get some wipes to clean the equipment. Bridget climbs on the balance beam and finds that the substance on the beam is syrup. Arabella mentions the story about Juliana eating waffles, but the girls give her weird looks. Lauren tells Arabella most of the girls that had quit the gymnastics team had quit because of Susan. Before she explains her story, Susan comes back into the room with the wipes. On the day of the gymnastics event, Arabella and Taylor decide to attend so Arabella can watch her friends perform. Before the contest starts, Arabella decides to use the bathroom. While she is using it, someone comes in, and Arabella begins to smell syrup again. When she comes out, she realizes that the other person in the bathroom is Susan, who is holding a backpack; a bottle of syrup falls out of the backpack, making her the syrup culprit. Susan tries to tell Arabella that her parents put her up to it to keep all the girls out of the competition, but Arabella refuses to accept her apology and ends their friendship. As Arabella goes back to the competition room, she runs into Juliana and tells her that she is quitting the class, which disappoints her. Arabella meets up with Taylor and asks to go home. On the car ride home, Arabella tells her sister about Susan's scheme and breaks down in tears. At home, Arabella continues to cry. She then decides that she is never trying anything new again since every time she does, it ends up in failure. Arabella falls into a depression after this. Lauren calls Arabella to tell her that the class had gotten three new members, but that all of the girls and Juliana are livid at Susan after finding out about her scheme. Irene informs Arabella that she had paid the fee to let Arabella continue going to the gymnastics lesson, not knowing that Arabella plans not to go anymore. At school, Arabella talks to her friends about the problem, and Chloe tries to convince her that quitting the lessons is the best idea. Daphne also mentions that Arabella hadn't been hanging out with her school friends as often, and Arabella makes a decision to quit the lessons permanently. At home, Arabella asks her parents to quit the lessons, but Irene informs her that the fee that she had paid is non-refundable, so Arabella is forced to stay there. Arabella reluctantly decides to deal with this, but she is not happy to face Susan again. When Arabella goes back to the lessons, everyone is happy for her return. Arabella meets the three new members of the class, and learns that one of the new girls, Tori, has previously quit because of Susan but had gotten the courage to come back. Susan attempts to apologize to Arabella again, but Arabella yells at her in front of the entire class. When practice begins, Arabella notices that Susan's skills are subpar and realizes that she is upset about what went down between them. After practice, Arabella decides to talk to Susan. She learns that Susan's parents had been using her to relive their glory days, and after what had gone down at the contest, Susan had stopped speaking to her parents and moved out of the house. Susan explains that she had wanted to make friends at the gymnastics class, but because of her parents, she never had the time to and as a result, she became increasingly socially awkward. Arabella decides to forgive her and convince her to talk to her parents about how she feels. Susan knows that it will take a long time for Arabella to regain her trust, but is happy that they are friends again. Characters (in order of appearance) * Chloe Winters * Arabella Wilson * Daphne Carson * Maryann Chang * Regina Daniels * Angela Thomas * Taylor Wilson * Irene Wilson * Juliana Gilman * Bridget Bernard * Elise McCarthy * Lauren Reed * Claudia Chin-Soto * Susan Duncan * Joel Wilson * Kyle Wilson * The Duncans * Gail Edwards * Jessie Sanchez * Clarissa Simpson * Gabby Evans * Robbie James * Tori Trivia *This book was rewritten four times. First edition, 2008. Fourth edition, February 2018. *Alex, Leah, and Ellie do not appear in this story. *This is the first appearance of the gymnastics girls. * Originally, the names of the members of the gymnastics girls were Bridget, Tori, Susan, Georgia, and Johanna. The creator changed the names of some of the girls to make them more trendy. Tori originally wasn't going to be in the recent version of the story, but at the last minute, the creator decided to re-incorporated her into it. Category:Stories